Laura Parker

Photo by Becky Hale

Laura Parker is a staff writer who specializes in covering climate change and marine environments. Prior to joining National Geographic, Parker worked as a national correspondent for USA Today and covered aviation for the Washington Post. She has written on topics such as avian flu in Southeast Asia, the descendants of the H.M.S. Bounty’s mutineers on Pitcairn Island, and sea-level rise in South Florida.

She has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. An Alicia Patterson fellowship enabled her to spend a year in Tunica, Mississippi, for a comprehensive story on illiteracy, poverty, and casino gambling in the Delta. Parker co-authored, with her husband, William Prochnau, Miracle on the Hudson, an account of the crash landing of US Airways Flight 1589 on the Hudson River in 2009.

A native of Washington State, Parker is a graduate of the University of Washington, a hiker and skier, and an easy mark for a homeless cat. She lives with her husband in Washington, D.C.